Haiku Would Your Help Be With This?

I’ve been asked to do something ... one of my more spectacular failings is that I find I hard to refuse anyone who asks me to do anything. (Please use this information humanely) .

In particular, when someone I love asks me to do something for them, I find it impossible to refuse. No, that statement doesn’t quite tell it like it is – When they ask me, I don’t even want to refuse.

So my beloved Linenhall Arts Centre have asked me to do this and I don’t even dream of saying ‘No’ because I 'heart' the Linenhall Arts Centre in a great big way. The Linenhall is my town’s Art Centre, and they have supported, entertained, and befriended me ever since I came to live here in Castlebar. They have premiered - what is it now? – five of my theatre plays. I have appeared in three plays there (none of them my own) and I… just love the place. That’s all.

So, The Linenhall have a programme of events for Culture Night next Friday night – 25th September 2009 - which is part of a nation-wide endeavour to get more of the general public involved in ‘culture-stuff’. The Linenhall will be crammed with diverse events and opportunities for fun. You should come along.

And, yes, I will be there. Here’s what the brochure says about my bit:

Haiku 4 UWant to write Haiku?Ken will show you how it’s doneor else die trying

Fifteen minutes inYou’ll know all you need to know.A good deal or what?

My brief is to show the good people of Castlebar how they might go about writing a Haiku poem in fifteen minutes or less… it wasn’t my idea but it’s not a bad one and that’s mainly why I will do it. I reckon I will have a little ‘stall’ or corner of a room where people can come and talk Haiku and hopefully give it a go.

I have several valued readers who are themselves established and talented poets and I hope they won’t look too dimly on my little excursion into this territory. Jim Murdoch has written well on the subject, as he has done on so many subjects. Sorry Jim.

Allow me to be the first to clearly state that you could fit all that I know about Haiku in a Haiku. I know this and Marie Farrell, the Director of The Linenhall, knows it too. But she’s a smart cookie, is our Marie. She knows I have an enthusiasm for writing which I’m passably good at sharing, that I will approach the subject from the basement up and that I am brilliant at taking the piss out of myself. These are the qualities that I hope will carry my Haiku evening off.

But, like I said, I would sure welcome some input from you guys. We did it a few times before, with Limericks 1 and Limericks 2, and they were a blast.

Could you write me a Haiku in the comments section or else, tweet me one. If you let me, I will use them on the night to help illustrate how a toe can be dipped in the Haiku pool by simply expressing yourself within the confines of the most basic of Haiku rules. This may seems frivolous and perhaps downright disrespectful to some but I actually have a serious writing point at the back of my head.

I firmly believe that creative writing can be strengthened by the at-least occasional imposition of confines upon it. There!

Take a blank page and write anything – it might well be great, it will probably be crap. But nail yourself to a subject and a point of view and a timescale and a tone and a setting and… the end result will be more focused, considered, and points will arise along the writing of it that you never thought would occur.

Anyway, I’ve lost you, I know. If you’re still here, please write me the simplest of Haiku – three lines, 5 syllables in the first, seven in the second and another five in the third. Tweet it or comment it and let me use it for Friday – all copyright remains with you of course – it’s not really Haiku at all but it’s a toe in the door of the form and that, for now, might be enough.

If you want a subject for your poem, here’s a couple of possibilities, Autumn, Myself, Swine Flu, Impotence, cinema-talkers and grass. (I thought of those as I wrote them, can you tell?)

@kirstieh:Hot, black and steamy; the glory in my morning; but it's just coffee.

Kirstieh and I just happened to be talking about coffee and... em... morning glory. Don't ask how it came up (pun-intended). She wrote here Haiku and I wrote a poorly-rhymed limerick, recorded here for posterity:

My coffee machine is the essence of morning time joy and real pleasance.It serves up expressowhich is surely a bless_ ohand it brings on a touch of tumescence.

Several years ago I took part in a haiku event. We were supposed to write as many haiku as we could within an hour and each was to have a kigo that reflected a season - the seasonal words were rain, butterfly, heat and fog. I couldn't resist 'cooking up' this grouping to be viewed as a whole. Feel free to use or not. (I like them to be shown in lower case.)

well seasoned expectations

metamorphosis?keep your two buck words - it's justbutterfly porkchops

freshly ground adviceif you can't stand the heat, dearjust cook in the nude

my mind's in a fog - will he want the pea soup orhave me for starters?

I've never been very good at haiku. I have a grand total of one that's made my canon. It was the 5-7-5 format that really put me off. Since I've discovered that that isn't a requirement I've been a bit more open to them but it's far easier to write a bad haiku than a good one I find.

Anyway, for you, this is what I did. As soon as I'd read your post I looked at what I was doing, listening to some choral music, and decided I'd spend 15 minutes writing about that and see what I could come up with. What you've got here are four haiku. I tweaked a couple of them to fit the 5-7-5 format but they became unnatural so I've left them as they stand.

I think what's interesting about them is a progression of thought around the idea of life and death. I aimed to incorporate a nature theme to keep with the spirit of the haiku and three of them have it.

Carrie: Thank you and Hi! You've touched on something I feel - the exercise of writing as many as you can in an hour has got to be a great one. The basic rules make it really easy to write one and that's got to mean it's really easy to write a bad one. Writing loads should mean that some good will distill out of it. I feel it's a good approach although I feel many deep thinkers would pooh-pooh the notion.

Jim: I really appreciate the time you've taken on this and, to my great pleasure, I think you've produced a wonderful musical work in haiku verse. I hope you keep it. With your permission, I will show it to my visitors on the night. (Just starting into your book... more soon).

Neil: It's really good... it's the lawn, innit? :)

Claire: I was in Tesco a few short hours ago. Your work resonates with me...

Sex, like chocolatesweet taste, just a bit bitterit melts in your mouth.

Make what you will of that one. I posted your link to the blog for tomrrow's schedule. I would have written that in haiku but my eyelids are starting to stick to my face. A sure sign that I've been sitting here long enough.

A friend gave me a book called 'The Haiku Anthology' (edited by Cor van den Heuvel). I never even looked at it before but had a peek today. It has a very good introduction about haikus which you could perhaps do with reading before you start on this new stage of your career! x

So. With your wonderful help, I got through Haiku evening and had a lot of fun. Four 15 minutes sessions. I had all your Haiku printed off and posted on the wall. They were perused with great interest.

I advocated writing many Haiku and overwriting them then paring them down.

I also forwarded my own feeling that the final 'line' effectively offers a counterpoint to the first two and that it is a great start to idenitify this counter point. This often presents the theme of the first line with the second becoming a sort of 'bridge'. So try writing the last line first, then the first and see what happens.

People were interested and kind and you guys were life savers - thanks again.

'Me' Stuff

55 Years Old.
Loves to write.
Has had writing produced for radio, theatre, and film... some short stories published (and broadcast) and a laundry list which was highly commended by 'Whiter than White' in Castle Street.
'My Writing Resume'